US President Donald Trump has said that he was not concerned about being impeached. Speaking in an interview with Reuters on Tuesday, Trump said that people would “revolt” if he were to be impeached. He also added that it would be hard to impeach somebody who hasn’t done anything wrong and created the greatest economy in the history of the US.

Radio Sputnik has discussed this with Dr Thomas Whalen, political analyst and an associate professor of social science at Boston University.

Sputnik: Do you feel that the president has got the potential to be impeached?

Dr Thomas Whalen: I just don't think the likelihood of impeachment is strong at this point, unless there's some other major revelations. And again we don't have the Mueller report so this is all guesswork, but right now probably not. I think the Democrats in the House and the leader Nancy Pelosi, who's going to take over as the speaker, she has no desire to do this because even if he does get impeached in the House, which would be likely, there's no way he's going to be convicted in a constitutionally required Senate trial.

The votes just aren't there. The Republicans control the Senate. We have the 2020 presidential election, I think that's the true means by which if the Democrats want to remove President Trump from office that's the best route to go.

Sputnik: Why do we keep having these discussions about impeachment?

Dr Thomas Whalen: There are all these new revelations and news, did President Trump, has he basically been in collusion with the Russian government or others to have a political quid pro quo: "I'll remove sanctions against you, if you allow me to buy or build a Trump Tower in Moscow".

That's been the allegations out there, but we don't have firm enough proof yet. That's what the Mueller investigation is about, whether you can prove that there was some sort of quid pro quo political deal in the works and that the Russian government worked closely with the Trump campaign. And, again, we have to wait on that. Right now it's just idle speculation.

Sputnik: President Trump met with Democratic minority leaders in a bid to secure a spending deal ahead of the government shutdown deadline, how likely are they to reach some deal?

Dr Thomas Whalen: If a government shutdown occurs and this would be generated by President Trump. The Democrats seem to be willing to give Trump some extra money on border security, the economy is doing well enough that this could induce a recession.

On top of that, there's problems with trade with China that we might have a trade war with them. And I think the markets at least kind of the herky-jerky up-and-down motion of them of late, I think really is going to send a chill in investors not just here in the United States, but across the world, that Trump might take our economy off the rails. I think that's the danger. I don't think a border wall is worth derailing all the economic progress that's been made in recent months.

Sputnik: Donald Trump has said that he will shut down the government if no deal is reached, how likely is he to actually do that?

Dr Thomas Whalen: Well, he's thinking that he could do what Bill Clinton did back in the 90s when then-speaker of the House Newt Gingrich lead to the government shutdown. That his popularity out of the Democratic Party soared as a result, because it was the Republicans that were the ones that shutdown the government unnecessarily. But I think this time around Trump is really, I think, in American people's opinion he's going to be the prime mover here. He'll be responsible, and to me it just seems irrational to make this kind of move at this point.

His popularity is dramatically falling across the board even among some of his base supporters. So he thinks this might be a way to fix that; that he could rally the base behind him and move forward going into 2020. I think it's a pretty bold calculation or hope on his part, that he is risking a lot on this move if he decides to go forward with it. I just don't think it's rational at this point.

The views expressed in this article are solely those of Dr Thomas Whalen and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Sputnik.

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